“Now I felt that I was raly free ☜ although I knew Morehouse was a lurkin’ round arter me: _and arter this I called no man master_, but I knew how to treat my betters. I now begun to ☞ feel somethin’ like a man, ☜ and the dignity of a _human bein’_ begun to creep over me, and I _enjoyed_ my liberty when I got it, I can tell you. I didn’t go a sneakin’ round, and spirit-broken, as I know every man must, if he’s a slave; but ☞ I couldn’t help standin’ up straight, arter I knew I was free. ☜ Oh! what a glorious feelin’ that is! and oh! how I pitied my poor brethren and sisters, that was in chains. I used to set down and think about it, and cry by the hour; and when I git to thinkin’ about it now, I wonder how any good folks, and specially christian people, can hate abolitionists. ☜ I think it must be owin’ to one of two things; either they don’t know the horrors or miseries of a slave’s life, or they can’t have much feelin’; for the anti-slavery society is the only society I know on, that professes to try to set ’em all free; for you know the colonization folks have give up the idee long ago, that they can do any thing of any amount that way; and so they say they are agoin’ to enlighten Africa. And I can’t for the life on me see how the abolitionists is so persecuted; it’s raly wonderful! ☜ But I’m glad I can pray to God for the poor and oppressed, if I am a black man; and I think it can’t be a long time afore all the slaves go free—there is so many thousands of christians all prayin’ for it so arnestly; and so many papers printed for the slave, and so many sarmints preached for him, and sich a great struggle agoin’ on for him all over creation. Why all this is God’s movin’s, and nobody can’t stop God’s chariot wheels.” ☜
A. “Well, Peter, you’ve come to a stopping place now, and I think we’ll close this book, for I suppose you’ll have some sea stories to tell.”
P. “Yis, Domine. I shall have some long yarns to reel off when I gets my sails spread out on the brine, for I think the rest of my history is no touch to my sailor’s life. But one thing, it won’t be so sorrowful, if ’tis strange; for, if I was rocked on the wave, I had this sweet thought to cheer me, as I lay down on my hammock, ☞ _I’m free_; ☜ and dreams of liberty hung round my midnight pillow, and I was happy, because I was no longer Peter Wheeler in chains.”